I'm now over level 40 with my Invul/Fiery tanker, Heatblast, and as I play I come up with different attack styles.

Main ideas are as follows:

1) Heatblast is purely a PvE team toon.

2) All defence and resistance powers of the primary pool are taken, control is my priority here, damage dealing belongs to the team. And the IO build will be designed to maximise def/resist values.

3) Invulnerability primary and Fire secondary work great together because the more mobs around me the more defence I gain. And with 3 decent AoE fire attacks (Combustion, Breath of Fire and Fire Sword Circle) I usually kill mobs at the same time, which is safer than killing one by one...

4) I can get my 4th AoE damage attack from the epic pool, however, they're all 4th tier powers and I don't wanna waste power slots with Hold, Immobilise & Range powers, the team will deal with those.

5) I intend to try Presence pool. First of all I'll get my second Taunt power to boost herd control. But on the other hand, Invoke Panic (AoE Fear) in that pool looks quite interesting. Now's the question:

As you already know, an enemy under fear influence has a chance to react when attacked. That's understandable with regular attacks but how about Fire DoT? Will they have only one chance to respond when I use an AoE DoT attack or will they respond everytime my attack ticks?

If second possiblity is correct, then there's no point in having Invoke Panic because they'll always be free to attack me. If so, I'd scrap the idea and try other powers instead.

Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2005 1:10 amPosts: 3420Location: some where out there

Blastor wrote:

I'm now over level 40 with my Invul/Fiery tanker, Heatblast, and as I play I come up with different attack styles.

Main ideas are as follows:

1) Heatblast is purely a PvE team toon.

2) All defence and resistance powers of the primary pool are taken, control is my priority here, damage dealing belongs to the team. And the IO build will be designed to maximise def/resist values.

3) Invulnerability primary and Fire secondary work great together because the more mobs around me the more defence I gain. And with 3 decent AoE fire attacks (Combustion, Breath of Fire and Fire Sword Circle) I usually kill mobs at the same time, which is safer than killing one by one...

4) I can get my 4th AoE damage attack from the epic pool, however, they're all 4th tier powers and I don't wanna waste power slots with Hold, Immobilise & Range powers, the team will deal with those.

5) I intend to try Presence pool. First of all I'll get my second Taunt power to boost herd control. But on the other hand, Invoke Panic (AoE Fear) in that pool looks quite interesting. Now's the question:

As you already know, an enemy under fear influence has a chance to react when attacked. That's understandable with regular attacks but how about Fire DoT? Will they have only one chance to respond when I use an AoE DoT attack or will they respond everytime my attack ticks?

If second possiblity is correct, then there's no point in having Invoke Panic because they'll always be free to attack me. If so, I'd scrap the idea and try other powers instead.

Feedback please?

first of Dot as far as i can tell works as follows with fear

fear target - hit target with Dot attake - target gets to react - target then stands there feared for some time takeing damage then gets another chance.

So the don't get a chance every tick but they do seem to get a chance every so often its possible its worked out on some kind of random chance percentage type things as I've had some thing never attake me and other s maybe carry out 1 or 2 attakes then stand there looking scared till they die

one thing that worrys me tho blast is this

Quote:

2) All defence and resistance powers of the primary pool are taken, control is my priority here, damage dealing belongs to the team. And the IO build will be designed to maximise def/resist values.

You say that control is your priority and that damage dealing belongs to the team but as you have fire as a secondery your form of control is damage the quicker they fall the lower the threat they represent to the team (not sure how it stands for just a fire secondery but a fire/fire tank can be one the most damaging members of a hero team) so i would say aim to maximise your damage more damage equils more dead and burning (burning is good as there tauanted for the duration)

Now to taunt

taunt is inherent to all tank attakes you smack some one with brawl there taunted for a few seconds (i for get the actual figure) this taunt is AOE so his sourounding mates are taunted as well now ad this effect to a AOE power and you have some ultamit agro grabing ability just think you hit 10 target with fire sword circle eatch of those targets pluss thos near those targets are tauntedand infact probably double taunted as thell have one taunt on top of another so once somthing gets within your AOE range there yours they may run of on fire but there gona come back

All in all you probably wont need the extra AOE taunt power from the presence pull as between AOE attakes,taunt aura and taunt you should be ok

I would recommend that you go look at the US tank forum and even the UK one as there are quite a few discusions on taunt

cast fear and then attack is the focus of any dark/dark defender as me, in my experience they react to my direct attacks (dark blast, moonbeam) but never react to a gloom strike, that give dotr to them

You have some good points there Mess, and I consider them carefully, since they're coming from a veteran tanker.

But my starting point is that I have all defence and resistance powers taken, so I've done my part there. As for control, apart from Gauntlet inherent power, I have Taunt aura, Invincibility, which makes mobs, even level1s, attack me when I pass by.

Maybe I wasn't clear earlier but when I said Mob Control I meant Herding large & scattered mobs. Because no matter how careful you are, someone in the team manages to aggro a separate group, either unintentionally or in a noobie way , while you're busy on the other side. So another ranged AoE Taunt power might be useful.

And since I get my second Taunt power from Presence pool, Invoke Panic in the same pool looked interesting, which I intend to try before finalising my build.

As for damage, I only intend to focus on 3 AoE powers, again as a matter of keeping enemies around me, as you also stated. My damage won't be enough to kill all aggroed, they're just going to assist the overall damage output of the team.

I don't intend to taunt all, kill all and move onto the next mob just like pre-ED fire tankers, when we used to stand and watch them gathering and killing 40-50 at the same time...

Hi blast. Gratz on 40 mate. I think most people have said it all except speaking from expereince with Invoke Panic I think it won't help you mate. Here's why:

1. Mobs will, I'm 95% sure, react for every tick of any of your DoT auras.2. One of the reactions it can invoke is, of course, to run away! Even if doesn't happen every time and I'm not sure how often it officially triggers but I would say somewhere in the region 1 out of every 3-5 hits will result in the buggers running off. And when they start they can really run quite a long way!3. Invoke Panic is also incredibly end burning. Something like 22-25% of your end out the window. That really tells when you wind it up with Hasten/Recharge IOs.4. Of course, as you already know, it takes a long time to come round again (60 seconds) just to provide a temporary hold (10 seconds) which may result in the whole mob running off.

Actually on the last point I've noticed that powers like Invoke Panic (and perhaps all AoE powers) either all hit the mod, all miss the mob or all invoke whatever secondary effect was built into the power. So unless NC have changed this IP is more likely to make the whole run off at the same time when it does eventually cause a 'run away' effect.

A final thought is about those epic powers. I don't have a high-level tank so can't speak from experience but one power I absolutely love is Ice Storm. I completely agree with what you said about the uneccessary single target control powers but if you could live with Chilblain/Block of Ice (whic would both be great at slowing powerful bosses/AVs down then Ice Storm is terrific. With no need to waste slots on accuracy it will really slow any taunted mobs, deliver great extra damage over a fair duration (15 seconds) and you can drop the attack down every 45-60 seconds or less. You can then 3 slot it for extra damage or extra slowing. It might also go with the 'heat' theme. Heat control etc.

Good point. They only try and run out of the area of affect though - which is ... oops it's 40ft. You're right that might put the kyboshers on that idea. Although if you used a bit more slow than damage they wouldn't get far very fast but on balance the Queen of Control strikes again: Ice Storm might not be such a good idea!

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